Forecasting the Evolution of the Digital Economy in the Industry of the European Union

Abstract

The wide use of telecommunications, computers and the internet, especially over the last four decades, has formed a new economic phenomenon, the “Digital Economy”. As a matter of facts, the development of digitalization has raised questions about its contribution to official economic indicators. This research examines the evolution of the information and communication industry (ICI) and its contribution to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of six European entities. Time series and auto-ARIMA models are employed to process the data. Moreover, this study forecasts the development of the ICI in the future. The results demonstrate a clear stable growth in the variable under examination over time, showing an increasingly greater contribution of the ICI to the national GDP in most cases with the exception of Greece, which has a high provisional risk.